AOL News (May 20) -- The "Waterworld" references are already flowing, but actor Kevin Costner's commitment to the BP oil spill cleanup is more than just a celebrity photo op. After investing 15 years and millions of his own money in new oil-separation technology, Costner hopes to help clean the oil from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico at a faster and more successful rate than ever before.

Moved by the catastrophic Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the Oscar winner and ardent fisherman bought new centrifugal oil separators from the government in 1995, investing $24 million to develop the vacuum-like machines for the private sector.

WDSU-TVThis device, funded by Kevin Costner, is described as a centrifugal processing device that separates oil from water. Costner hopes the device will help with the Gulf oil spill cleanup efforts.Fifteen years later, BP has approved six of the machines for testing in the gulf, where they will extract the spilled oil, send it back to a tanker and pump 99 percent purified water back into the ocean.

Costner's business partner in Ocean Therapy Solutions, Louisiana trial attorney John Houghtaling, said the machines could be in the water as early as Friday.

"The technology works," Houghtaling told AOL News. "We know the technology works and we know it's really the only solution."

BP confirmed that it planned to use Costner's machines in the cleanup effort, with spokesman Mark Salt telling AOL News today that "we've agreed to test them."

Costner tapped his scientist brother, Dan, and Houghtaling to aid in the cleanup efforts after the massive spill on April 20, years after Costner first took a keen interest in separation technology.

"He didn't get investors. He did it all himself," Houghtaling said of Costner's multimillion-dollar investment. "His single purpose was that if there was ever going to be another massive oil spill, this machine was going to be able to separate the oil from the water."

That sort of spill came last month, after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig located off the Louisiana coast.

"Kevin didn't get involved with this opportunistically ... he's an environmentalist," Houghtaling said. "We know him as a big movie star, but he's a very big hunter and fisher."

Though oil-extracting machines had been in use for decades, Houghtaling said they are slower and less effective than those developed by Ocean Therapy Solutions. He said the new machines not only clean the polluted water but sift out pure, reusable oil.

"What struck Kevin was that we had this same separation technology for years -- how is it that we can go to the moon in the '60s but we can't advance our separation technology?" Houghtaling said.

Costner and Houghtaling demonstrated the machines for local leaders and reporters at a New Orleans news conference last week.

"I'm very happy the light of day has come to this," Costner said of the technology, telling a reporter that he was "very sad" over the spill, but saying of the machinery, "This is why it's developed."

BP said Wednesday that it will attempt a tactic known as a "top kill" as early as May 23 in an attempt to cement and seal the well. The company has pledged to pay for the rising cost of the spill, estimated at $625 million (and counting).

For Houghtaling, joining Costner's endeavor and funding the advanced centrifuge technology meant recusing himself from potentially lucrative litigation in which he was representing oyster fisherman against BP.

It is a Closer-wannabe written and directed by a creature lacking any iota of talent. Acted in the worst possible manner by all the cast. Starring Sam Worthlessington, Eva Mendes (why the fuck) and a Guillaume Canet acting so bad he almost seem retarded.

I watched this movie on Netflix Instant not too long ago. Not a very good movie, but watchable enough on a bored afternoon. It stars Amber Tamblyn, a pre-Social-Network Armie Hammer, and the single worst performance I have ever seen by a professional actor, by Aidan Gillen. He currently spends his days fucking up every scene he's in on the otherwise excellent Game of Thrones, but in this flick he takes it to a whole new level. I'm willing to cut a little slack to the fact that he had to do an American accent (he's Irish), but even that doesn't account for the baffling nature of some of his line readings. I was half-convinced it was going to turn out that his character was secretly an alien from outer space who had just landed a week earlier and took an online course in human behavior, but no, as it turns out, he's just that bad an actor. I don't even feel like I'm describing this performance in harsh enough terms, so I'll have to make some up: it was the most painfuckular, rapefacetical performance I have ever seen. Two thumbs way up. Up my ear canals and into my brain.

Wow I'm curious to watch it because I found that actor pretty good in The Wire. I mean he wasn't the best of the bunch but I definitely rooted for him and thought he had a good face.

Though I am sure he must be rapefacetical so I'd like to see that.

I don't want to change the subject to Sam Worthington but I'll do. Isn't he the worst? How can he have a career all of a sudden? Since the last 5 years or so he's been in huge films and he has always been awful from day one. Who likes him, and how can they?

I've still only gotten around to watching the first two seasons of The Wire (don't hit me!), so I can't speak to the quality of his acting in that, but in the two things I've seen him in, he's been terrible. He's not so distractingly bad on Game of Thrones, but he's definitely a weak link in the cast. In Black Out, I don't know how he was even able to cash his paycheck in good conscience.

As for Sam Worthington, I don't think he's that bad. I don't think he's that good. I don't think he's much of anything. He's a Spam sandwich on Wonderbread with low-fat mayonnaise. A beige Subaru Outback going 30 miles per hour in a 35 zone.

Interesting, I really like Aiden Gillen in The Wire and Game of Thrones. He excels at playing charming yet full of shit characters. That monologue at the end of Season Three of The Wire was so moving until you realized he wasn't saying anything at all.

His performance in Game of Thrones is growing on me after the last episode, but that doesn't change how I feel about his acting in Blackout. I really wish Netflix still had it on Instant, because I want everyone to watch it so they know what I'm talking about. He really was that bad, I swear I'm not making it up!